Trench Warfare!A new map by mibi (concept and graphics), Incandenza (gameplay and logistics), and yeti_c (XML)

Note: I will be keeping the FAQ at the bottom of this post updated in a vain attempt to head off already-asked questions. Please check the FAQ!

Everybody is rushing, running, trying to escape almost certain death in this hail of enemy shells. Today I have seen the real face of war. -- German Musketeer Hans Otto Schetter

Anyone who says he enjoys this kind of thing is either a liar or a madman.-- Captain Harry Yoxall, Kings Royal Rifle Corps

The war is in stalemate, and chateau generals have abandoned maneuver for fortification. Trenches bristle with the rapid-fire weapons of the waning Edwardian Age as vast armies stare across the blasted expanse of No Man's Land at the enemy.

Only through the use of all the resources at your disposal will you attain victory on this most inhospitable of battlegrounds. Amass your armies in the trenches. Occupy the machine guns to blunt the enemy attack. Call for mortar strikes, reinforcements, and artillery barrages from your bunker. And when the time is right, lead your men across No Man's Land into the enemy trenches!

LATEST MAPVERSION 5

Updates:

1. By glory of god some extra space has been found for the NML text and it was changed to"neutrals respawn at half their original strength if held for one round" I think this is sufficient.2. Taking oaktowns suggestion on the machine gun text, it has been changed.3. The machine gun in the MG grap[hic has been increased ever so slightly.

Large map:

Click image to enlarge.

VERSION 4

Updates:

1. Added a piece of wood to M112. Changed mortar wording to include trenches3. Added some graphical elements to the Orders4. Removed bunkers and foxholes from the mini graphic

Changes:1. red line is a little more transparent.2. All the bunkers are lined with wood. Cairns mentioned that some needed extra wood and someone else said it looked like you couldn't attack out of them because of their configuration, so now they all totally lined with wood, making the issue of travelling in and out a bit moot.3. extra pixels at the bottom of the legend.4. The machine gun graphic is changed to a farther zoomed out version, I don't know if this is any clearer. I am not a huge fan of it.

Unique gameplay featuresAll bonuses beyond basic territory count are autodeployConditional autodeploy for trenchesKiller neutrals in No Man's Land that respawn to half their original valueVarious types and ranges of bombardments

XML and related issuesConditional XML would need to be implementedKiller neutrals respawning to a different army count would need to be implementedTerritory names in the XML (and drop-downs, obviously) will follow a "Coordinate" "Evocative Description" format, i.e. "A-3 German Front", "B-7 German Bunker", "L-3 Allied Machine Gun", and so forth. Orders territories, having no coordinates, will simply be "Allied/German Mortar/Reinforcements/Artillery", as appropriate.

FAQQ: Why do all the trenches have neutrals in the middle territories?A: To prevent bonuses on the drop.

Q: Why are all the bonuses autodeploy?A: This creates a new type of gameplay, one suited to the particularities of trench warfare. Bonuses will be difficult to take but difficult to break. Resources must be husbanded and spent intelligently. As players amass armies, each must decide at what point to strike, for large-scale warfare is costly, and a broken offensive could lead to defeat. Plus, much like Arms Race, the bonus structure is set up so that even 8-player games will come down to a 1-on-1 battle across No Man's Land.

Q: Can the machine guns bombard other machine guns within their field of fire?A: Yes, they most certainly can.

Q: Why Germans and Allies? What about the Austrians/Russians/Ottomans/Italians/etc.?A: As this is an abstraction of a Western Front battleground, the only applicable armies are Germans on one side, British and French Allies on the other. Certainly there were other countries involved with World War One, but an intricate parsing of such belongs in a WWI discussion thread, not here.

Q: How about putting landmines in No Man's Land?A: Questions of historical importance aside, landmines are pretty worthless and easily avoidable if everyone knows exactly where they are, and given that this map already has a couple of XML elements that haven't been loaded yet, randomized XML is not something we're prepared to wait for.

Q: What about airplanes?A: Given the vast artillery bombardments undertaken by both sides before and during offensives, aerial bombing would be like throwing a Molotov cocktail into a forest fire.

Q: What the hell are you doing posting a map, Inc?A: mibi has brought me on as gameplay consultant and general map manager. I'll be the one updating this post, doing a lot of the interacting with posters, and handling all logistical issues that arise during the course of development.

Last edited by Incandenza on Wed Jan 14, 2009 1:39 am, edited 13 times in total.

Great map! Looks good and has a different style of game play. I am confused on a few things though.

Can machine guns bombard other machine guns?By respawn are you referring to killer neutrals? Is xml capable of doing a respawn at half the original strength?At first I was confused as to how you attack the orders, but after looking/reading the map more I understood it.

Also, while typing this, I have the red underline on respawn and autodeploy that indicates it's spelled incorrectly. Pretty much makes no difference whatsoever, but maybe it should be re-spawn and auto-deploy.

I look forward to following the progress on this map, although apart from maybe a few minor things, it doesn't really need any!

Last edited by Ethitts on Sat Aug 02, 2008 8:13 am, edited 1 time in total.

Absolutely fabulous. I love the look. You just have an excellent graphical style mibi. I can't wait to see this when it is done. Suggestions:1)I take it that the blank spaces in the trenches (where there are no neutrals) are where the players spawn?Do you think the trenches need to be more obvious (from a graphical standpoint) maybe have metal walls that are holding them up? Or wood pillars/sandbags/stone walls that can bee seen from an aerial view?Just something to help distinguish them from the rest of the dirt.

Click image to enlarge.

Click image to enlarge.

2) The trenches (as seen above) are connected more. Think the trenches on both sides need to be 1 continuous trench. They can have cubbyhole and stuff, but it should be one trench on each side. Not three little ones.

3) There should (maybe) be some barbed wire in the trenches that is impassable. Just like the real trenches were

Click image to enlarge.

4) And I know there may not be room. But they did use planes to bomb the trenches. It would be cool to have those too. Maybe up in the ORDERS area. They can bombard anything, but they are really weak and can be bombarded by all players and have a negative autodeploy (because WW1 plane sucked)

5) Plus there needs to be some added graphical flare on the map to make it look like a trench war. (barbed wire, bodies, weapons, metal shrapnel. etc)

WidowMakers wrote:Absolutely fabulous. I love the look. You just have an excellent graphical style mibi. I can't wait to see this when it is done

Thanks.

WidowMakers wrote:Suggestions:1)I take it that the blank spaces in the trenches (where there are no neutrals) are where the players spawn?Do you think the trenches need to be more obvious (from a graphical standpoint) maybe have metal walls that are holding them up? Or wood pillars/sandbags/stone walls that can bee seen from an aerial view?Just something to help distinguish them from the rest of the dirt.

Personally i don't think the trenches need to be distinguished more, but i am not opposed to doing so. i can experiment with walls or sandbags or something, see what fits in an aerial view.

WidowMakers wrote:2) The trenches (as seen above) are connected more. Think the trenches on both sides need to be 1 continuous trench. They can have cubbyhole and stuff, but it should be one trench on each side. Not three little ones.

Yes this is how the trenches were, they were also zigzagged, but the ugly head of CC mechanics rears its heads here. How do you work bonuses when all the trenches are connected? Also, this map is designed to mimic the feel an emotion of trench warfare, one thing I like is that from the get go, you are isolated in a trench, loneliness, despair sets in, you have build up enough strength and courage to move on to the next trench. there are a lot of issue that come up with a connected trench system, such as balance and other stuff. it is something to consider though.

WidowMakers wrote:3) There should (maybe) be some barbed wire in the trenches that is impassable. Just like the real trenches were

The thing i don't like about barb wire is that its a pain to draw in the aerial sense, it just doesn't factor on the scale. I learned this with D-Day. Also, barb wire is not really 'impassible' its more of a major hindrance. but why put it IN the trenches? per haps in no mans land or something. maybe some -1 territories. i dunno, barb wire is definetly a part of trench warfare, but maybe on this map its implied, or it can be implied only graphically.

WidowMakers wrote:4) And I know there may not be room. But they did use planes to bomb the trenches. It would be cool to have those too. Maybe up in the ORDERS area. They can bombard anything, but they are really weak and can be bombarded by all players and have a negative autodeploy (because WW1 plane sucked)

someone is probably a better expert here but i don't think there were much aerial bombings going on. they were still flying those Red Baron type planes. The artillery does a good job of being the last resort, bombard anything, end game.

WidowMakers wrote:5) Plus there needs to be some added graphical flare on the map to make it look like a trench war. (barbed wire, bodies, weapons, metal shrapnel. etc)

Ethitts wrote:By respawn are you referring to killer neutrals? Is xml capable of doing a respawn at half the original strength?

Yes, it's killer neutrals. And unless I'm gravely mistaken, killer neutrals can be set to respawn to whatever value one desires.

Ethitts wrote:Also, while typing this, I have the red underline on respawn and autodeploy that indicates it's spelled incorrectly. Pretty much makes no difference whatsoever, but maybe it should be re-spawn and auto-deploy.

Given that respawn and autodeploy are gaming-related neologisms (and commonly accepted and understood, at that), they seem fine the way they are. Besides, adding dashes adds unnecessary girth to the legend instructions.

pepperonibread wrote:Incandenza is mispelled on the map

You misspelled "misspelled". Spelling irregularities are on the to-do list.

WidowMakers wrote:4) And I know there may not be room. But they did use planes to bomb the trenches. It would be cool to have those too. Maybe up in the ORDERS area. They can bombard anything, but they are really weak and can be bombarded by all players and have a negative autodeploy (because WW1 plane sucked)

mibi talked about this, but I wanted to put in my 2 cents. Aerial bombing was indeed present, but was pretty negligible compared to field artillery and the big honkin' howitzers, which are represented as mortars and artillery, respectively. The point being that while planes were pretty new, artillery was one of the backbones of the war effort, i.e. a weeklong, million-shell bombardment preceded the Battle of the Somme.

Ethitts wrote:By respawn are you referring to killer neutrals? Is xml capable of doing a respawn at half the original strength?

Yes, it's killer neutrals. And unless I'm gravely mistaken, killer neutrals can be set to respawn to whatever value one desires.

I'm afraid you are gravely mistaken. Though it's been suggested, and is necessary for Maze Craze to progress. So chances are it'll be implemented shortly. Hopefully.

Huh. Well, then, I guess it's a good thing that this whole foundry process takes awhile. Thankfully it seems like configuring neutrals to respawn to whatever value one desires would be a pretty simple addition.

like i thought the artillery was a yet to be drawn territ on the map. it makes sense if you think about it all, but right now i didn't think that those 6 orders on the left side were part of the gameplay because they're stuck in the legend...

like i thought the artillery was a yet to be drawn territ on the map. it makes sense if you think about it all, but right now i didn't think that those 6 orders on the left side were part of the gameplay because they're stuck in the legend...

during live games they will have neutrals armies on them, so it will look more 'in play'.

I request (as prior done in other, less public ways) that you change the title. For one, I don't think Trench Warfare is the right title for this map. It's less based on WWI trenches as it is on WWII stalemates a la Stalingrad. For two, my map of the same name (sans exclamation point) is not an abandoned project and I will be picking it back up in the near future (I would estimate September of this year). My map doesn't work with any other title without short-changing the very idea it is based on.

Other than that, I really like the start of this map. Even with the numerous "d'oh, XML no do that yet" stuff, I hope it cruises through the foundry quickly.

TaCktiX wrote:I request (as prior done in other, less public ways) that you change the title. For one, I don't think Trench Warfare is the right title for this map. It's less based on WWI trenches as it is on WWII stalemates a la Stalingrad. For two, my map of the same name (sans exclamation point) is not an abandoned project and I will be picking it back up in the near future (I would estimate September of this year). My map doesn't work with any other title without short-changing the very idea it is based on.

Other than that, I really like the start of this map. Even with the numerous "d'oh, XML no do that yet" stuff, I hope it cruises through the foundry quickly.

TaCtiX, sorry for not getting back to you privately, I've been busy and stuff. It seems we have a predicament. Your was started first back in March, however this map is far more developed. I don't think this map has anything to do with WW2 stalemates in Stalingrad. By the end of WW1 both sides had dug over 12,000 miles of trenches, it was the epitome of stalemate, particularly on the Western front. This map explores that stalemate mindset and really embodies trench warfare before things got out of hand later on with tanks and air support.

Your map which will require another extensive graphic overhaul is more complicated and involves four opposing fronts fighting around a hill, which really has nothing to do with WW1 even though the mustard gas, tanks and bi-planes are all from that era. What I suggest for you TaCtiX is to take your mechanics and redevelop the map to be a localized version of a WW1 battle. The Battle of Somme perhaps.

Regardless, "Trench Warfare!" is the most appropriate name for this map and will remain the title.

1) How do you get to the allied and german orders?2) Where are the foxholes? are they the single square trenches?3) Where exactly can the machine guns attack? you show a little diagram, but its not very clear, say i have the L3 machine gun, am i aloud to attack k2 and j1 and k4 and j5 and k3 and j3 only? or am i aloud to bombard more?4) the no mans land thing is confusing also5) i dont care for some of the numbers on the top. 9 and 5 look suspiciously alike. Why not just, for 9, copy 6, flip it upside down, and flip it horizontally? that way 5 and 9 dont look so alike6) could you make the mini-90degree-diagram less blurry?

From the instructions: "Bunkers: +3 autodeploy, can attack corresponding orders"

bryguy wrote:2) Where are the foxholes? are they the single square trenches?

Yes.

bryguy wrote:3) Where exactly can the machine guns attack? you show a little diagram, but its not very clear, say i have the L3 machine gun, am i aloud to attack k2 and j1 and k4 and j5 and k3 and j3 only? or am i aloud to bombard more?

The arrows on the ends of the diagram would imply that the machine guns can bombard far more than just the immediately adjacent squares. However, I've added a more detailed visualization of the machine gun ranges to the first post.

the arrows and the letters are fine, but the background is all blurry. Like for example the machine guns. The machine guns on the map have nice, solid borders. On the mini-thing, it has blurred borders.

Androidz wrote:Bump, even tough you dont like suggestion pliss say no so i know you didint overlook it:D

Fair enough.

Androidz wrote:Could you try adding some more dirt or blood dripping from the tittle giveing it a more OldWarish look? RIght now it looks like "Happy Zone

Blood seems a bit over the top, but a bit o' grunge doesn't sound like a bad idea.

Androidz wrote:Maybe the trenches should be connected somehow like the pictures Widow posted with nonehitable deepduged holes. With 1 ways attacks?

Wellllll... I'm not sure what you mean by "nonehitable deepduged holes", do you mean trenches that can't be hit by artillery? or can't be hit via conventional attack?

Also, with the gameplay setup as it currently is, there have to be spaces between the trenches to make ground attack across No Man's Land feasible. Otherwise there'd be no strategy to fortifying your own zone, you just let the guys in the trenches keep piling up. With gaps in the trenches, I could bombard your exposed terits with mortar fire, make a run across No Man's Land, bypass your trenches, and hit your bunker and disrupt your bombardment and reinforcements, which is much like the strategy used by the Germans at Cadorna in 1917 and during the last-ditch 1918 offensives on the Western Front.

Androidz wrote:Little ArmySoldiers? Behind the cannons our in the trenches? i dont know how that would look.

mibi mentioned earlier that he's going to add more detail to the trenches, but given the top-down view, I think that adding people would look weird and potentially clutter the map...

Androidz wrote:Could you try adding some more dirt or blood dripping from the tittle giveing it a more OldWarish look? RIght now it looks like "Happy Zone[/quote

]

Blood seems a bit over the top, but a bit o' grunge doesn't sound like a bad idea.

Great:D

Incandenza wrote:

Androidz wrote:Maybe the trenches should be connected somehow like the pictures Widow posted with nonehitable deepduged holes. With 1 ways attacks?

Wellllll... I'm not sure what you mean by "nonehitable deepduged holes", do you mean trenches that can't be hit by artillery? or can't be hit via conventional attack?

Also, with the gameplay setup as it currently is, there have to be spaces between the trenches to make ground attack across No Man's Land feasible. Otherwise there'd be no strategy to fortifying your own zone, you just let the guys in the trenches keep piling up. With gaps in the trenches, I could bombard your exposed terits with mortar fire, make a run across No Man's Land, bypass your trenches, and hit your bunker and disrupt your bombardment and reinforcements, which is much like the strategy used by the Germans at Cadorna in 1917 and during the last-ditch 1918 offensives on the Western Front.[/quote]

some of those Trenches should be connected in the so its easyer to reach the artellery. And they cant be hit by artellery ofc but i get what your saying.

Androidz wrote:Little ArmySoldiers? Behind the cannons our in the trenches? i dont know how that would look.

mibi mentioned earlier that he's going to add more detail to the trenches, but given the top-down view, I think that adding people would look weird and potentially clutter the map...[/quote]